In San Francisco and other places, activists are already re-drawing the lines of what it is “acceptable” for Catholics to believe in public.

Our new overlords are making it very clear what the terms of our surrender will be.

Quickly it is becoming “illegitimate” for Catholics even to defend our beliefs and rights in the public square.

When pew-sitting Catholics in San Fransisco, who have had their shepherd, their church and their reputations slimed for months by professional hired goons like Sam Singer, came together to host a picnic – a picnic! – for their bishop, the local intelligentsia sneered that they should “back off” and “give it a rest”.

Excuse me?

Now websites like GoFundMe are blocking Christians from asking for funds to support themselves when their livelihoods are threatened or lost due to their support of marriage.

There are myriads of powerful individuals in America, such as the 100 “prominent Catholics” who took the ad out against Abp. Cordileone, who believe it is illegitimate for Catholics to adhere to Catholic teaching on marriage, family and life.

But Catholics who wish to remain faithful to their baptismal vows and continue to remain Catholic must support marriage as God created it, Christ proclaimed it, and the Church has always defined it. Belief in marriage as the union of one man and one woman is not optional for Catholics.

That means, for Catholics, our spiritual lives are in jeopardy if we deny marriage publicly.

Which in turn means when powerful individuals, government officials and agents of the law force us to deny marriage “or else”, they are saying our Catholic lives don’t matter.

In Roman times, Christians knew they could not offer incense at the altar of false gods. In Reformation England, Saints Thomas More and John Fisher knew they could not say Henry VIII was validly married to Anne Boleyn. In both of these historical examples, elected officials cared more about enforcing the orthodoxy of the state than the lives of the Catholics under their thumb.

So I think we need to start asking those in power who now claim it is illegitimate for Catholics to adhere to our beliefs about marriage, do they think Catholic lives matter?

Or do they simply deny our right to live in accordance with our beliefs?

I think asking them “Do Catholic lives matter?” is a simple and straightforward way to make what is at stake abundantly clear.

Catholic. Lives. Matter.

]]>http://www.catholicvote.org/ask-them-do-catholic-lives-matter/feed/88This Triduum, Pray for Those Fomenting Hatred Against Christians in Indianahttp://www.catholicvote.org/this-triduum-pray-for-those-fomenting-hatred-against-christians-in-indiana/
http://www.catholicvote.org/this-triduum-pray-for-those-fomenting-hatred-against-christians-in-indiana/#commentsThu, 02 Apr 2015 14:30:01 +0000http://www.catholicvote.org/?p=65941Honestly, did anyone expect the situation to get this bad in Indiana?

Every single day seems to bring worse news.

The situation of the O’Connor family in particular has me sick to my stomach. Local news ABC 57 went looking for a restaurant owner that would go on camera to share their beliefs and found an unsuspecting girl behind the counter of a small-town pizzeria who said she would have no problem serving gay people but that they would not cater a gay wedding if asked.

Notice, there wasn’t even an act of discrimination — the girl simply answered a hypothetical question.

For this “offense”, thousands upon thousands of gay activists have inundated the pizzeria’s social media accounts with hatred and filth. The O’Connors have received death threats, they were forced to close the business, and now they may even leave the state.

For Christians, even when we feel we must condemn sin, we remember that we must always love the sinner, love the person.

The people attacking the O’Connors don’t bother with that distinction. For so many of them, the O’Connors are evil people who deserve evil things to happen to them. And they wish them evil.

It angers me to see innocent people like the O’Connors suffer, but it also greatly saddens me to see people like the ones attacking the O’Connors be led and lead themselves down the road of actual hatred. People who hate destroy themselves more than they injure the object of their hatred. The time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is a perfect time to pray deeply for those who hate and persecute us for His sake. Because love is the only thing that can overcome hate.

So I’m asking you to join me in praying for all those fomenting hatred in Indiana and against those who believe in the sanctity of marriage.

We should especially pray for those in the media and those leading the charge against religious freedom. They bear a huge weight of responsibility for the lies, distortions and dehumanization that makes this intensity and prevalence of hatred possible.

We should also pray for the courage to stand up for religious freedom and for civility in our society. Christians have a duty to stand up for the truth, particularly in the face of intimidation and persecution. May silent prayer lead us to bold action.

Amen.

]]>http://www.catholicvote.org/this-triduum-pray-for-those-fomenting-hatred-against-christians-in-indiana/feed/67Signs of Hope: The Benedict Bishop Bumphttp://www.catholicvote.org/signs-of-hope-the-benedict-bishop-bump/
http://www.catholicvote.org/signs-of-hope-the-benedict-bishop-bump/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 20:57:20 +0000http://www.catholicvote.org/?p=65330One of the memes currently circulating is that Pope Francis is in the midst of radically changing the American episcopate in a leftward, “progressive” direction.

And whether or not you like using terms like “progressive” and “orthodox”, the media and some figures in the church are eager to claim that big change is happening.

In the first installment of my new series, Signs of Hope, I described the phenomenon that younger priests in America are on the whole more likely to be orthodox than their elders. Attribute it to what you will (I give lots of credit to the papacy of St. John Paul II), I think this claim is a verifiable fact.

My second installment will now describe what I refer to as the “Benedict Bishop Bump” – the fact that Pope Benedict has had an over-sized and I predict, long-lasting, effect on the makeup of the American hierarchy, one that will take an awful long time for Pope Francis to reverse (if he even wants to, which I leave as a separate debate).

Back in 1995, my father Edward Peters published an article “The coming bishop crunch” in Homiletic & Pastoral Review where he pointed out that beginning in 2005 the pace of episcopal retirements and vacant seas would increase dramatically:

“The question I want to consider now is simple: during just the three years from 2005 to 2007, where will we find 45 men “outstanding for their solid faith, good morals, piety, zeal for souls, wisdom, prudence and other virtues and talents, possessing advanced degrees or true expertise in scripture, theology, canon law…” (1983 CIC 378) to fill those episcopal slots? If only for mathematical reasons, we can’t count on the present pool of bishops to cover the bases.”

In other words, in three short years (2005-07), 10 archdioceses and 35 dioceses needed new leadership.

In the twilight years of St. John Paul II’s pontificate, new episcopal appointments in the United States had slowed, many bishops and archbishops were serving past their age of mandatory retirement and it was no secret that the Holy Father was not able to be as involved in the selection of new bishops as he once was.

The Holy Spirit’s answer to this problem was Pope Benedict.

Pope Benedict’s election in early 2005 was perfectly timed to effect a sea change in the American Catholic hierarchy as well as create an enduring legacy.

Beginning in May 2005 until his retirement in February 2013, Pope Benedict appointed 100 bishops to head dioceses and archdioceses in the USA. There are 195 U.S. dioceses in all, which means that almost half of the currently serving bishops in America are Pope Benedict appointees. And that is not counting the dozens of auxiliary bishops he also appointed.

Pope Francis, by comparison, has appointed roughly 33 bishops — and most of these bishops were originally made bishops by Pope Benedict (just as many of Pope Benedict’s bishops were originally made bishops under St. John Paul II).

Out of all these appointments, the media has only been able to latch onto two that fit their narrative (Bishop Cupich and Bishop McElroy) and both of them were appointed by Pope Benedict! The other 31 bishops Pope Francis has advanced apparently do not fit the narrative.

Pope Francis will not reach the 100-bishops-appointed mark until 2023, eight more years from now. And if he keeps up his track record of 2 “progressive” appointments per 33 chances, that would mean a grand total of 6 “progressive” bishops in America by 2023, which is about what we have now.

In the meantime, the majority of American bishops will continue to be men appointed by Pope Benedict, and their replacements will disproportionately come from the ranks of auxiliary bishops Pope Benedict appointed and after that, the young men who will become bishops next are the ones I described in my first installment: orthodox priests!

Keep this in mind the next time you see a headline from the mainstream media claiming that they can predict what the future of the Catholic hierarchy in America will look like.

===

I am using this (recently out of date) list of American bishops plus my own independent research using Catholic-Hierarchy to come up with the numbers in this article … feel free to quibble with my math in the comments!

Nine years ago I started writing as the “American Papist” because I was, and remain, proud to be both Catholic and an American.

We as Christians understand that hope is a necessity of being Catholic because there is no better foundation for hope than the promises of Christ.

Newly ordained priests. Copyright: The Catholic Spirit, newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

But what signs of hope can be gleaned for the future of the Catholic Church in America?

This year, interspersed with my other writing, I’m launching a series of essays around the theme “Signs of Hope” to share and explain what gives me inspiration and optimism about the future of the Catholic Church in America.

And I hope you actively take part in sharing with me and your fellow readers what gives you hope.

My first sign of hope is the Under-35 Priest.

When I get into debates about the future of the Catholic Church in America with Catholics who disagree with me about the importance of orthodoxy, one of the realities I keep in mind is that, because of the type of young men studying in seminaries and serving in parishes already, the papist revolution has already begun.

We tend to think about the shortage of priests in numeric terms. And we take hope when the latest reports show that there are more men studying for the priesthood now than a decade or two ago. But what fascinates me more is the quality of the men studying for the priesthood now and of priests in general under the age of 35. One of the most striking features of these young priests is their orthodoxy, especially when you contrast their theological views with the set of priests who graduated seminary in the 1970’s. Just as we talk about the shared characteristics among generations of Americans (i.e. the baby boomers, the “greatest generation” etc.) we can talk about shared characteristics among generations of priests. So many of the men who became priests in the 1970’s sought to change the world through the Church. Men under 35 become priests to serve the church.

Think about what a young man choosing the priesthood knows he is getting himself into: overwork, due to the shortage of priests, and ridicule from most anyone outside the church. It takes dedication and determination to choose such a path.

Here’s a dynamic I’ve seen in parish after parish. The liberal monsignor is the pastor. He is in his 60s. His homilies and pastoral priorities are cryogenically frozen and preserved from the 1970’s. He never preaches against sin. The assistant priest (i.e. parochial vicar) is probably in his 30s, maybe late 20s. This under-35 priest loves St. John Paul II. He loves Latin in the Mass. He may have fallen away from the church in college, but he had a powerful conversion. He talks about sin and the beauty of confession in his homilies. He quietly tries to introduce Eucharistic adoration.

Does this sound like a parish you know of, maybe even your own?

It’s happening all across America. And it’s going to change the face of the church in this country.

Over the past decade I have met hundreds of seminarians and young priests. I can only recall a handful who didn’t fit the pattern I’m trying to describe.

And, of course, I have also met and studied under scores of priests over the age of 35 who are every bit as loyal and as dedicated to the Church as the young men I’m describing. We owe these priests an incalculable debt for their perseverance and for passing on the faith in its fullness.

We must also consider how many young priests in the 1970’s began their priesthood with stars in their eyes and orthodoxy in their hearts but changed their views along the way. Who knows how the rough and tumble of vocation lived out in the real world can alter priestly attitudes and sensibilities. So the way priests view themselves and the Church obviously can change over the course of a lifetime. But at the same time, I wager that today in 2015 we’ve already reached a critical mass of young, orthodox priests who will have a significant impact on the Church in America in our lifetime, even if trends change eventually and the next crop of priests are less orthodox than the current set.

The saying goes that the church “outlives all heresies”, and the makeup of young priests in America is testament to the truth of that adage. I once heard a story about several seminarians complaining among themselves that their professor (an older priest) was misrepresenting scripture and trying to turn parts of the New Testament into proto-feminist propaganda. Most of the secondary sources they were assigned were published in the 1970’s. It was the beginning of the semester and the course was required. They were trying to figure out what could be done — they didn’t want to miss this opportunity to understand the scriptures more fully. Finally one of them suggested that the solution was that some day they would be teaching the course and when that happened they would teach it differently. The answer was not to overthrow the heterodoxy, the solution was to outlive it. I have never forgotten that perspective.

I think it’s impossible not to trace this quiet revolution to St. John Paul II, and in particular the 1993 World Youth Day in Denver. So many young priests trace part of their vocational discernment either to St. John Paul II or a World Youth Day (Denver in particular). This positive trend also appears to be more pronounced in America than in other parts of the world.

I think it’s also particularly revealing to note which bishops and religious orders are attracting the most vocations — orthodox ones. That’s why the Dominicans on the east coast are flourishing while the Paulist Fathers are having a harder time. Or why Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz can have over two dozen men in formation in a diocese that numbers less than 100,000 and another diocese did not ordain a single priest in ten years because the bishop refused to ordain another man until he could also ordain women.

One simple way of looking at all this is to say: if you are willing to put up with all of the challenging and difficult things that come with being a Catholic priest, you might as well be really Catholic.

The under-35 priest is not running the show right now. He is waiting in the wings, serving the church he loves. The vast majority of these young priests will not be old enough to be appointed bishops for another decade or two. But when they do, one of the pillars of an American Catholic renaissance will be in place.

===

What do you think? In your experience, are younger priests more likely to be orthodox than older priests? What are the dynamics in your parish and your diocese? What gives you hope for the future of the Catholic Church in America?

]]>http://www.catholicvote.org/signs-of-hope-the-under-35-priest/feed/96Feeling Devastated by What Pope Francis Says? Try These 3 Helpful Keys.http://www.catholicvote.org/3-rules-to-avoid-feeling-devastated-by-what-pope-francis-says/
http://www.catholicvote.org/3-rules-to-avoid-feeling-devastated-by-what-pope-francis-says/#commentsWed, 21 Jan 2015 14:00:37 +0000http://www.catholicvote.org/?p=64569I can hardly recall a papal visit which has touched upon so many hot topics and ignited so much controversy as Pope Francis’ visit to the Philippines.

You would almost think the Pope had just issued an encyclical, when actually most of what he did was talk to reporters on a plane.

The reactions have been visceral at times. For instance, what the Pope said in support of Humanae Vitae caused one feminist commentator at Crux News to declare she was “devastated“.

My first reaction to reading the Pope’s comments on free speech and Islam was to throw my hands up in the air and declare them a “mess.” I didn’t feel devastated, but I sure felt frustrated.

On top of this, the Pope roundly warned against the threats posed by gay marriage and skipped numerous opportunities to bring up climate change, against what major newspapers had predicted. You can bet lots of reporters and liberal Catholics felt frustrated, even devastated by this.

And as if this wasn’t all enough, the Pope’s comments on rabbits have prompted about every person I know to register a strong opinion. Some of the most faithful and ardent Catholics I know, who have sacrificed heroically to be open to welcoming a large family, feel devastated when the pope compared them to rabbits.

Almost everyone it seems has some reason to feel devastated.

But I think there is an upside to all of this emotion and debate.

When you’re trying to understand something complicated, the more information you have, the better. Pope Francis has just given us a great deal of information to digest — enough that I would like to propose three keys to understanding Francis — three keys to help everyone avoid feeling devastated:

1. If you are expecting Pope Francis to change church teaching, you will be devastated. Liberal Catholics and the mainstream media have set themselves up for huge disappointment.

2. St. John Paul II spoke as a Polish philosopher. Pope Benedict speaks as a German theologian. Both popes made frequent use of analogies. Pope Francis prefers to speak in idioms, like Spaniards do. If you expect Pope Francis to speak as the previous two popes did, you will be devastated.

3. When Francis speaks to the mainstream media, like it or not, he is choosing to speak to non-Catholics. Faithful, practicing Catholics are not his primary audience. If you are expecting Pope Francis to be speaking to you as a practicing Catholic when he addresses the media, you will be devastated.

The first key explains a lot of the whiplash we see in media reports about Pope Francis when he upholds church teaching and they act shocked. Liberals are so good at believing their own spin that many convince themselves it is reality, setting themselves up for a rude surprise.

The second key explains a lot of frustration Catholics feel when they read what Pope Francis said, for instance, about free speech, Islam and punching someone who insults your mother. Many of us are expecting an analogy which illuminates instead of an idiom which appears at first to confuse things further. Moral theologians and bloggers cringe while someone sitting in the pew catches on quickly to the simple points Pope Francis is making about respect and offense.

The third key explains some of the times when the pope appears tone deaf or offends the sensibilities of the faithful, for instance, his comment about rabbits. Without ignoring the real pain this comment has caused some, the Pope’s words make more sense when you take into account that he is trying to disabuse the secular world of its unfair stereotype about how Catholics view procreation. Remember that when the Pope addressed the Italian Association of Large Families, he heaped praise on them! Again, like it or not, Pope Francis adopts a different tone when he is talking to the media. The wisdom or efficacy of this approach is up for debate, but the key distinction is still illuminating whether you agree with it or not.

Now obviously these three keys are not a magic code to unlock the pope’s meaning. Nor am I recommending we use them to explain away what the Pope says. We always have to take the Pope seriously. And sometimes, we can disagree with the Pope’s choice of words or expression. But taking what the Pope says seriously includes educating ourselves about his particular manner of speaking — and that is where I believe these three keys are helpful.

Finally, before we ever take issue with something he says we had better be sure we’ve read what he said (NOT the media report!), tried to understand the context and make sure the translation is accurate and reliable.

And, in the midst of all this heat and noise, let’s never forget the powerful work of the Holy Spirit that is ongoing in and through the ministry of the successor of Peter.

What do you think — are these three keys helpful? How have you come to understand Pope Francis?

]]>http://www.catholicvote.org/3-rules-to-avoid-feeling-devastated-by-what-pope-francis-says/feed/99Rumbling and Blundering about Papal Climate Changehttp://www.catholicvote.org/rumbling-and-blundering-about-papal-climate-change/
http://www.catholicvote.org/rumbling-and-blundering-about-papal-climate-change/#commentsMon, 05 Jan 2015 15:00:03 +0000http://www.catholicvote.org/?p=64133Last week the UK Guardian tried its best to deliver a lump of coal to Catholic skeptics of “climate change”. Here is what it looked like:

In 2015, the pope will issue a lengthy message on the subject [of climate change] to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, give an address to the UN general assembly and call a summit of the world’s main religions.

The reason for such frenetic activity, says Bishop Marcelo Sorondo, chancellor of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences, is the pope’s wish to directly influence next year’s crucial UN climate meeting in Paris, when countries will try to conclude 20 years of fraught negotiations with a universal commitment to reduce emissions.

…Following a visit in March to Tacloban, the Philippine city devastated in 2012 by typhoon Haiyan, the pope will publish a rare encyclical on climate change and human ecology. Urging all Catholics to take action on moral and scientific grounds, the document will be sent to the world’s 5,000 Catholic bishops and 400,000 priests, who will distribute it to parishioners.

According to Vatican insiders, Francis will meet other faith leaders and lobby politicians at the general assembly in New York in September, when countries will sign up to new anti-poverty and environmental goals.

…However, Francis’s environmental radicalism is likely to attract resistance from Vatican conservatives and in rightwing church circles, particularly in the US – where Catholic climate sceptics also include John Boehner, Republican leader of the House of Representatives and Rick Santorum, the former Republican presidential candidate.

Cardinal George Pell, a former archbishop of Sydney who has been placed in charge of the Vatican’s budget, is a climate change sceptic who has been criticised for claiming that global warming has ceased and that if carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were doubled, then “plants would love it”.

For the liberal editors of the Guardian, apparently the only thing more important than saving the world from climate change is making sure some US Catholics get upset about it.

That’s why, even though the pope hasn’t published anything yet, it’s important to already use the mere possibility of this encyclical as an opportunity to bash some US Catholics and paint them as “angry” and reactionary.

The Guardian is careful to produce as many bogeymen as possible to be examples of powerful special interests bent on derailing the pope’s plans to help the poor — figures such as John Boehner, Rick Santorum and Cardinal George Pell.

It’s easier to get away with this sort of demagoguery in Europe because, besides bureaucracy, climate change is probably the most universal orthodoxy enforced on the continent. The Vatican’s participation in climate change fervor didn’t begin with Pope Francis. In 2007, for instance, Pope Benedict said: “Preservation of the environment, promotion of sustainable development and particular attention to climate change are matters of grave concern for the entire human family.”

Now, I would wager 99% of Catholics have no problem agreeing with preserving the environment and promoting sustainable development. All the controversy hinges on climate change, whether it is caused by human industrial carbon emissions, and if so, how to properly address it.

Let’s take a Grand Canyon-size skip over the question of whether climate change is happening and if it is, if human beings caused it and can fix it and simply try to answer the highly hypothetical question of how it should be fixed and what priority fixing it should be given.

This is when the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

If the future of the human race comes down to the results of a UN meeting, we’re doomed. The UN is neither competent nor at all friendly to the interests of the Church. In fact, the UN is actively hostile to the positions and interventions of the Holy See on almost every issue from religious freedom to the meaning of marriage to the rights of the unborn — save for climate change. There would be great practical harm, I would argue, in legitimizing the UN and offering it the moral credibility of and association with the Church.

The UN is also, as I said, incompetent. Worse: it is actively counterproductive. To take just one glaring recent example, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just done a 180 on biofuels. For decades we have subsidized and pushed biofuels like ethanol. Now the IPCC is is saying that biofuels harm the environment and push up food prices. James Conca writes in Forbes about the staggering consequences of the false push for biofuels:

In 2000, over 90% of the U.S. corn crop went to feed people and livestock, many in undeveloped countries, with less than 5% used to produce ethanol. In 2013, however, 40% went to produce ethanol, 45% was used to feed livestock, and only 15% was used for food and beverage

The United States will use over 130 billion gallons of gasoline this year, and over 50 billion gallons of diesel. On average, one bushel of corn can be used to produce just under three gallons of ethanol. If all of the present production of corn in the U.S. were converted into ethanol, it would only displace 25% of that 130 billion.

But it would completely disrupt food supplies, livestock feed, and many poor economies in the Western Hemisphere because the U.S. produces 40% of the world’s corn.

…In 2014, the U.S. will use almost 5 billion bushels of corn to produce over 13 billion gallons of ethanol fuel. The grain required to fill a 25-gallon gas tank with ethanol can feed one person for a year, so the amount of corn used to make that 13 billion gallons of ethanol will not feed the almost 500 million people it was feeding in 2000. This is the entire population of the Western Hemisphere outside of the United States.

In 2007, the global price of corn doubled as a result of an explosion in ethanol production in the U.S. Because corn is the most common animal feed and has many other uses in the food industry, the price of milk, cheese, eggs, meat, corn-based sweeteners and cereals increased as well. World grain reserves dwindled to less than two months, the lowest level in over 30 years.

Additional unintended effects from the increase in ethanol production include the dramatic rise in land rents, the increase in natural gas and chemicals used for fertilizers, over-pumping of aquifers like the Ogallala that serve many mid-western states, clear-cutting forests to plant fuel crops, and the revival of destructive practices such as edge tillage. Edge tillage is planting right up to the edge of the field thereby removing protective bordering lands and increasing soil erosion, chemical runoff and other problems. It took us 40 years to end edge tillage in this country, and overnight ethanol brought it back with a vengeance.

Biofuels now join the long and deplorable list of government-sponsored megaprojects undertaken for supposedly green reasons which only resulted in the manipulation of markets and the exploitation of the poor. Time and time again, green interventions promoted by the UN and its participating governments have harmed the very people and environments they were supposed to help.

The Guardian quotes these words addressed by Pope Francis in October to a “meeting of Latin American and Asian landless peasants” as a good encapsulation of his philosophy:

An economic system centred on the god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rhythm of consumption that is inherent to it.

The system continues unchanged, since what dominates are the dynamics of an economy and a finance that are lacking in ethics. It is no longer man who commands, but money. Cash commands.

The monopolising of lands, deforestation, the appropriation of water, inadequate agro-toxics are some of the evils that tear man from the land of his birth. Climate change, the loss of biodiversity and deforestation are already showing their devastating effects in the great cataclysms we witness.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of the UN meets Pope Francis

If these are the evils that Pope Francis seeks to eradicate, his encyclical ought to be addressed to the bureaucracies of the United Nations and to governments which manipulate markets to their own advantage. Giving the United Nations and other international organizations more power and centralized authority is both imprudent and, I would argue, a violation of subsidiarity.

It is true that cash (or I would clarify, greed and power) dominate much of the world economy. The UN is certainly not immune from these dangerous influences. But the answer is to place God and the human person at the center of our moral and physical environment. It’s only with God and the human person in the picture that we can assign nature her proper place, because nature is not an end in itself — only God and human persons are ends in themselves. God gives us nature to serve man, not man to serve nature.

Now who in power at the UN do you think believes this?

The original sin of climate change is that it pits human beings and nature against each other. The United Nations sees people, and particularly poor people, as the problem, as consumers, which is why they funnel so much money into birth control and population suppression policies. That’s why those who hold power at the UN are the very last people we should be going to if we truly want to help the poor!

Again, preservation of the environment and promotion of sustainable development? No problem. But climate change and the blundering, malicious environment of the UN? No thanks.

The Associated Press described Cardinal Burke’s new position as “largely ceremonial” and said the Knights of Malta are a “charity” who provide “residences for the elderly.”

Oh, really?

Because last time I checked, the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta (their full name) was the world’s oldest surviving order of chivalry boasting over 13,000 members (knights and dames), 80,000 permanent volunteers and 20,000 personnel.

The Knights of Malta became a military order in 1099 during the First Crusade that conquered Jerusalem.

They kept themselves busy for the next Four Hundred Years byconquering islands, protecting Christian pilgrims and fighting Muslims.

Then in 1517 they helped turn back the Ottomon Empire in the Battle of Lepanto. It was kind of a big deal.

The modern day Knights of Malta are present in over 120 countries. They have bilateral and official diplomatic relations with over half of the world.

The Order now also includes Dames of Malta, seen here preparing for battle in line outside the Vatican.

Cardinal Burke has said he will be traveling to meet with Knights and Dames of Malta all over the world, maybe in one of their planes.

That’s right, planes.

When he gets to his destination, maybe he will use one of these Sovereign Military Order of Malta passports.

You know who else has to carry multiple passports?

Secret agents.

Undercover operatives.

International men of the liturgical counter-revolution!

As Cardinal Burke explains, the Knights of Malta have two primary missions (that we know about): the defense of the faith (defensio fidei) and the care for the poor (obsequium pauperum).

Pretty awesome, right? And we’re just getting started.

Every year the Knights of Malta bring thousands of malades (the sick and infirm) on pilgrimage to Lourdes, France for a week. They gather in the Basilica of St. Pius XII, which looks like this from above on Google Maps.

But underground it holds 25,000 knights, dames, pilgrims and malades.

Cardinal Burke will be serving as Patron of the Order, an office where he serves as the representative of the pope to the prince of the sovereign military order, Fra. Matthew Festing, the 79th head of the order.

Here is Cardinal Burke leading a procession in Lourdes.

Oh wait, that’s a bad angle.

There. That’s better. The unofficial motto of the Knights of Malta is “Go big or go home”.

Cardinal Burke says he is optimistic for the future and is looking forward to his new assignment.

I would be too if the pope had just given me an army!

]]>http://www.catholicvote.org/the-pope-didnt-exile-cardinal-burke-he-gave-him-an-army-photos/feed/60On Immigration, the Ends Don’t Justify the Meanshttp://www.catholicvote.org/on-immigration-the-ends-dont-justify-the-means/
http://www.catholicvote.org/on-immigration-the-ends-dont-justify-the-means/#commentsFri, 21 Nov 2014 18:01:33 +0000http://www.catholicvote.org/?p=63443Last night, Pres. Obama announced that he would unilaterally take action to grant everything short of citizenship to 4-5 million undocumented people.

By his own multiple prior admissions, Pres. Obama lacks the authority to do this. In attempting to justify his actions, he even invoked Scripture. Evidently it was so urgent for him to do this now, he could not even wait for the new House and Senate to convene in January and work with them to pass legislation. And yet, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, Pres. Obama did nothing on immigration reform.

To make matters worse, the USCCB released a statement “welcoming” the President’s action:

Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, M.Sp.S., auxiliary bishop of Seattle and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Migration, welcomed the news today that the Obama administration will defer deportations for many undocumented immigrants and their families.

“We have a long history of welcoming and aiding the poor, the outcast, the immigrant, and the disadvantaged. Each day, the Catholic Church in the United States, in her social service agencies, hospitals, schools, and parishes, witnesses the human consequences of the separation of families, when parents are deported from their children or spouses from each other. We’ve been on record asking the Administration to do everything within its legitimate authority to bring relief and justice to our immigrant brothers and sisters. As pastors, we welcome any efforts within these limits that protect individuals and protect and reunite families and vulnerable children,” said Bishop Elizondo.

Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, archbishop of Louisville, Kentucky, and president of the USCCB said, “There is an urgent pastoral need for a more humane view of immigrants and a legal process that respects each person’s dignity, protects human rights, and upholds the rule of law….

Neither Bishop Elizondo nor Archbishop Kurtz acknowledge the fact that the president’s actions overreach his legitimate authority and violate the rule of law.

In Catholic moral teaching, the ends do not justify the means. Period.

Even if what the president did was good, the way he chose to do it is wrong, and bishops ought to be saying so.

Just because they happen to like what they foresee as the result, it does not justify supporting or welcoming this action. Lest we forget, we still have two more years to go under this president. It is no secret that Pres. Obama took this unprecedented action to bring the spotlight back on himself and appease the left-wing of his party. What’s to stop the president from abusing his authority to push for more taxpayer funding of abortion, more erosion of religious liberty, or more coercion of private consciences when it comes to redefined marriage in the coming 24+ months? How will bishops or pastors criticize future abuses when they are silent about what has just happened?

Even on the merits, there is strong reason to question what the president has done. Incentivizing illegal immigration by retroactively pardoning those who engage in it, promotes further illegal immigration, which we know is inherently dangerous to those who attempt to enter our country illegally. Illegal immigration fuels sex trafficking and a host of human abuses. It rewards criminal enterprise, not just of those enter the country illegally, but for criminals and organized crime that take advantage of the circumstances.

Laws protect the weak and vulnerable. Our founding fathers and veterans have sacrificed so much to preserve our system of laws. It should come as no surprise that a country might be tempted to do what seems like a little wrong to achieve a greater good. But this is always how evil presents itself — as the good.

This article details the heads of numerous Catholic groups joining the USCCB in praising the president’s actions.

Praising politicians who break their own promises, violate their oaths of office and erode the foundations of our society isn’t just bad practice, it’s negligent and shortsighted pastoral care.

]]>http://www.catholicvote.org/on-immigration-the-ends-dont-justify-the-means/feed/35Next Tuesday, We Don’t Get to NOT Votehttp://www.catholicvote.org/next-tuesday-we-dont-get-to-not-vote/
http://www.catholicvote.org/next-tuesday-we-dont-get-to-not-vote/#commentsThu, 30 Oct 2014 21:36:12 +0000http://www.catholicvote.org/?p=63084The past few weeks I’ve been using the uCampaign app to send invites to Catholic friends around the country encouraging them to support Senate candidates in battleground states. Many of these races are within the polling margin of error and once again, active Catholics could be the deciding factor on election day.

Mark Udall and Cory Gardner

Out of dozens of invites I have sent, I only received two responses explaining why someone chose not to accept my request to support a given candidate.

One Catholic in Colorado asked me if the Republican candidate, Cory Gardner, supported over-the-counter abortifacients, and didn’t that mean we couldn’t support him?

Another Catholic in a swing state, reminded me that he couldn’t publicly endorse a candidate for office because he is a clergyman.

I know several of my friends will not vote in this election because they dislike both candidates, both parties, or think that politics in general is a waste of time. Some of my friends have very principled and thought-out reasons why they cannot in good conscience support any candidate up for a vote in these elections.

I sympathize with all of the people I mentioned above, but I don’t agree with them. To me, it’s pretty simple. Vote out evil. In almost every race, it’s not hard to figure out which candidate is more actively going to do harm to the weak and vulnerable.

Yes, Cory Gardner reversed his position on the Colorado personhood amendment and has been filling voters mailboxes with leaflets touting his support for over-the-counter birth control. Neither of these moves ingratiate him to me. Quite the opposite, in fact. But his opponent, Mark Udall, is even worse. Udall supports abortion on demand without apology. Udall has spent nearly the entirety of his campaign claiming that Gardner is “anti-woman”, so much so that he has been nicknamed “Mark Uterus” by the press. Defeating Udall in Colorado would help end the harmful stereotypes propagated by the “war on women” meme. Practically speaking, Udall would support Pres. Obama and Senate majority leader Harry Reid and continue to attack the unborn and erode a culture of life.

If I were in Colorado, I would vote for Cory and I would still do what I’m doing now: I would encourage my friends and family to vote for Cory too. Because I’m not expecting to see Jesus or Pope Francis or Mother Teresa on the ballot. What I would expect to see is Mark Udall’s name on the ballot. And I would leave an active blank by his name. If I stayed home and didn’t vote for Cory Gardner, that’s a vote for Mark Udall. And I would have that on my conscience.

And I’m not off the hook having voted against Udall, either. I would have to contact Cory Gardner’s office and say I voted for him only because he was less pro-abortion then Mark Udall, and that I would expect Sen. Gardner to be fully pro-life in every way he promised during the campaign, and I would urge him to re-examine his position on contraception. But at least I’ll be going to him as a supporter, not a conscientious objector.

Speaking of Catholic conscientious objectors to voting: it’s not just about voting. If you don’t exercise your right to vote, you still have the obligation to inform your fellow citizens and participate as a citizen in our democracy. In fact, if you refuse to vote, I would argue you have more of an obligation to do something. Transforming the culture doesn’t begin with staying home on election day.

If none of this persuades you, I challenge you to watch these three videos and still plan on sitting this one out….

Video 1:

Video 2:

Video 3:

These are three examples of pro-abortion progressives trying to get their supporters to vote. In a country where only one side votes and takes the time to encourage their friends and family to vote, we lose.

In next Tuesday’s election, Republicans have a chance to take control of the U.S. Senate, depriving Pres. Obama and the Democrats of the chamber they’ve used to block good legislation, pass bad legislation and appoint people with bad ideas to important positions like the Supreme Court.

Wherever you live, especially if you live in one of these nine states, you have work to do between now and Tuesday! Plan on voting next Tuesday, and encourage your friends and family to vote! Now there’s even an app for that. Don’t forget to remind your out-of-state friends and family to vote as well!

Clergy have every right and responsibility to inform their flock about the church’s social teaching, and the weekend before the election is the perfect time for a refresher course.

With every election, we have the opportunity to become The Catholic Vote.

Don’t miss out on this one.

See you at the voting booth!

]]>http://www.catholicvote.org/next-tuesday-we-dont-get-to-not-vote/feed/8Who is Trying to Rig Synod14?http://www.catholicvote.org/who-is-trying-to-rig-synod14/
http://www.catholicvote.org/who-is-trying-to-rig-synod14/#commentsFri, 17 Oct 2014 13:00:52 +0000http://www.catholicvote.org/?p=62609I ask the question in my headline because of reports like this from Edward Pentin in the National Catholic Register:

“More and more there is talk in Rome that this synod is being engineered by groups intent on steering the Church in a heterodox direction, and increasingly evidence is coming to light that points to it. The first and most obvious example was the interim report published on Monday. It still remains unclear who exactly wrote it and how many eyes had seen it before it was made public…

[…]Archbishop Bruno Forte, the synod’s special secretary, known to be a keen advocate for changes in pastoral practice, is thought to have been one of the main authors — certainly the passages on homosexuality that drew most media attention. It’s also believed the general rapporteur, Cardinal Peter Erdo, was cajoled into signing off on it…

[…] Many synod fathers have made it known they were not expecting the “relatio” to be made public, despite it being common procedure during synods for such a document to be published. “Just like you, I was surprised that it was published,” Cardinal Wilfrid Napier told reporters Tuesday, adding: “You people got the document before we got it, so we couldn’t have possibly agreed on it.”

At the outset, the Secretary General of the Synod, Cardinal Baldisseri, called for a free discussion, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the relatio did not accurately represent or summarize what was actually said during the synod’s proceedings. Take this revealing quote from the Associated Press:

“In fact, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said he recalled only one speech out of about 265 about gays during the debate.”

If that was the case, who inserted this language into the relatio?

It’s one thing to call for free discussion and it’s another to release a summary that distorts what was discussed. It’s one thing to openly debate ideas and it’s another to stealthily promote a heterodox position in an effort to bring external pressure to bear on the church.

As a result of the relatio fiasco, an extraordinary event took place at the synod –Father Zuhlsdorf translates a report of what happened which appeared in La Stampa:

The General Secretary of the Synod [Card. Balidsseri] announced the decision not to publish the reports of the Circuli Minores [subcommittees by language groups, tasked with contributing elements to the final report]. The announcement provoked the protest of Card. Erdo [the president or chairman for this Synod], and numerous other Synodal Fathers. The Pope, silent and very serious. At last, Fr. Lombardi announced that the reports of the commissions would be made public.

[…] Erdo took the floor, implicitly distancing himself from the report that bore his name, and saying that if that “disceptatio” had been made public, then the others of the Circulo Minores ought to be made public.

His speech was followed by an avalanche from many others along the same line, underscored by thunderous applause.

The Secretary of the Synod, Card. Balidisseri, was watching the Pope, as if in search of advice and lights, and the Pope remained silent and very serious.

Silent also were the Under-secretaries of the Synod, Fabene, Forte, Schoenborn and Maradiaga.

Kasper wasn’t there.

Finally, Fr. Lombardi announced that the reports of the Commission would be made public.

Now, Pope Francis does not speak during the regular sessions of the synod, so nothing can be made of his silence.

But the thunderous applause of the synodal fathers does mean something — it means they are tired of having their contributions and deliberations misrepresented to the outside world.

“Apparently, Card. Pell was the first one to rise up against Card. Baldisseri. When Baldisseri made the announcement, Card. Pell took the floor and said that the reports had to be published and that they were tired of the manipulation.

From that point, the bishops also rose up. When Baldisseri repeated his position, he was effectively shouted down.

At that point, Card. Baldisseri turned to the Pope and got the nod to publish.”

As a result of this minor uprising, you can now read what the various language groups of synodal fathers have discussed since Monday, and it is fascinating reading. English Group C’s report, authored by Archbishop Edward Kurtz, begins “[We were] surprised by the release of the relatio to the media,” etc. English Group B, led by Cardinal Napier, begins by noting the diversity of their group (“five were from Africa, seven from Asia, one each from Oceania, the United States of America and Europe”), and, perhaps as a result of its geographical composition, discusses the problem of polygamy. English Group A, led by Cardinal Burke (yes) is actually the most conciliatory of the three, but all three seek to heal the defects of the initial relatio in a positive way. All three improve upon the relatio in critical ways. All three demonstrate that the revisionists do not have a monopoly on innovation — far from it! In fact, these new documents reveal how many fruitful and promising pastoral proposals there are from the “traditional” voices at the synod.

The publication of the conclusions reached by the various language groups is a huge victory for transparency and therefore for the ultimate success of the synod.

But we still deserve an answer about who orchestrated the release of this damaging relatio language. Who is trying to put words into the mouths of the synodal fathers?

Cardinal Baldisseri? Archbishop Forte? Cardinal Kasper? Who?

And in the same vein, why has there not been more reporting of this dramatic scene that took place at the synod? Why is it only being reported by the Italian press?